Epic Games Reveals Free, Crowdsourced Unreal Tournament

Epic Games has announced a new Unreal Tournament, which it will co-develop with the Unreal Engine 4 development community, for PC, Mac, and Linux.

Mark Rein, the Gears of War and Unreal Tournament studio's VP, teased a new game last week. This Unreal Tournament will be a free game -- "not free to play, just free."

Fans with an Unreal Engine 4 subscription can participate in the crowdsourced development the next Unreal Tournament, with fan-created mods playing an integral role in its life post-launch. Epic intends to create a marketplace where creators can give away or sell their custom content. Epic's cut from those sales is what will pay for the game.

"We see this as an ongoing project with no end date," project lead Steve Polge told IGN. "Unreal Tournament will be the base both for the continued evolution of the competitive FPS, and as a great way to enable aspiring developers to realize their visions for this kind of game."

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This new game comes from a "small team of Unreal Tournament veterans."

Polge also says, "we see a unique opportunity to re-invent the competitive FPS." Epic will will work closely with the community to decide what is included in the core Unreal Tournament game, but at the same time we plan to blur that distinction by making it extremely easy for gamers to access any community-built content they find interesting."

Unreal Tournament won't be available for some time, but as soon as there's a playable alpha, Epic will launch it so anyone can play. Fans can also contribute feedback in Epic's forums if they aren't development-minded.